THE  PROBLEM 

OF 

HUMAN  DESTINY 


AS  CONDITIONED 
BV 

FREE  WILL 


THE  PROBLEM    OF 

HUMAN  DESTINY 

AS  CONDITIONED  BY 

FREE   WILL     ^  ^.  „„^ 

*      MAYr^]  1911 

DISCUSSION  BY 
Rev.   Lyman  Abbott,   D.D. 

Editor  of  The  Outlook 

Rev.  Eric  Waterhousk,  A.M.,  B.D. 

London 


Prof.   William  G.   Tousey,   S.T.D. 

Tufts  College 


THE    MURRAY   PRESS 
BOSTON  AND  CHICAGO 


CONTENTS 


PAGK 

INTRODUCTION 5 

WHY  I  AM    NOT    A   UNIVERSALIST:    An 
Address. 

By  Lyman^bbott. 

AN  OPEN  LETTER  TO  DR.  LYMAN  ABBOTT: 
A  Review  of  the  Address 24 

By  William  G.  Tousey. 

REJOINDERS 36 

CAN   GOD   BE  BAFFLED?    A  Criticism  op 
THE  Logic  of  Universausm 43 

By  EbiC    WATEBHOUSE. 


A  REPLY  TO  DR.  WATERHOUSE 57 

J|E 


By  William  G. Mousey. 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Archive 

in  2009  with  funding  from 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


http://www.archive.org/details/problemofhumandeOOabbo 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE. 

DURING  the  session  of  the  Uni- 
versalist  General  Convention  held 
in  Boston,  1899,  an  evening  was  set 
apart  as  Interdenominational  Evening. 
The  attendance  at  this  congress  of  the 
churches  was  large,  and  profound  in- 
terest was  manifest.  His  Excellency, 
Governor  Wolcott,  gave  an  address  of 
welcome;  Dr.  Francis  G.  Peabody  of 
Harvard  University  spoke  for  the  Uni- 
tarians, and  Dr.  Frank  O.  Hall  of  New 
York,  for  the  Universalists.  Dr.  Ly- 
man Abbott,  editor  of  The  Outlook^ 
representing  the  Congregationalists, 
gave  a  notable  address  entitled,  ^'Why 
I  am  not  a  Universalist.^^  This  ad- 
dress was  printed  in  full  in  The  Out- 
look, and  later  in  The  Universalist 
Leader,  and  immediately  called  forth 
a  review  by  Prof.  W.  G.  Tousey  of 
Tufts  College,  under  the  caption,  "An 
Open  Letter  to  Dr.  Lyman  Abbott.^ ^ 
The  Open  Letter,  after  its  appearance 
in  the  Leader,  was  printed  in  part  in 
The    Outlook,    and   briefly    repHed    to 


INTRODUCTORY    NOTE 

by  Dr.  Abbott.  This  rejoinder  evoked 
some  final  comments  from  Professor 
Tousey. 

Later,  in  the  Homiletic  Review^  of 
April,  1910,  Rev.  Eric  Waterhouse  of 
London,  under  the  heading,  ^^Can  God 
he  Baffled?  A  Criticism  of  the  Logic 
of  Universalism/'  raised  anew  the  issue 
so  strikingly  developed  by  Dr.  Ab- 
bott. His  approach,  however,  was 
at  a  somewhat  different  angle,  and, 
as  will  be  seen,  in  somewhat  different 
temper.  By  invitation  of  the  editors 
of  the  Review,  Professor  Tousey  re- 
plied in  the  same  number. 

On  both  occasions  the  main  conten- 
tion was  over  the  bearing  of  Free  Will 
upon  the  Problem  of  Human  Destiny. 
It  would  seem  that  to-day  for  many 
thoughtful  minds  the  sole  obstacle  to 
the  acceptance  of  the  Universalist  be- 
lief in  the  final  perfection  and  happiness 
of  man  is  found  in  his  freedom  of  will. 
Being  free  his  final  destiny  is,  it  is  held, 
necessarily  uncertain,  and  unpredict- 
able. ^^A  man's  destiny  is  in  his  own 
hands;  what  he  may  do  with  it  we  can- 
not know.''  Notwithstanding  the  fer- 
vent desire  and  indisputable  purpose 
of  the  Almighty,  he  may,  by  virtue  of 


INTRODUCTORY    NOTE 

his  inalienable  liberty  of  choice,  elect 
to  follow  the  evil  way  forever. 

With  a  view  to  promoting  clearer 
thinking  on  this  subject,  and  a  better 
understanding  of  the  momentous  issue, 
the  Universalist  Publishing  House,  with 
due  acknowledgment  of  the  courteous 
concessions  of  The  Outlook  and  The  Horn- 
iletic  Review,  now  brings  together  these 
notable  discourses  in  the  order  of  their 
appearance. 


HUMAN  DESTINY 


WHY  I  AM  NOT  A  UNIVERSALIST 
By  LYMAN  ABBOTT 

IT  would  be  pleasant  to-night  sim- 
ply to  speak  of  those  great  funda- 
mental truths  in  which  all  Congrega- 
tionalists,  whether  they  call  themselves 
Unitarian,  Universalist,  or  Orthodox, 
are  agreed.  But  it  has  seemed  to  me 
that  it  would  be  of  more  service,  both 
to  the  denomination  which  I  represent 
and  to  that  to  which  I  am  speaking,  if 
I  should  tell  you,  as  far  as  I  can  in  a 
short  address,  why  Liberal  Congrega- 
tionalists  are  not  Universalists.  It  is 
true  that  no  Congregationalist  has  a 
right  to  speak  with  authority  for  other 
CongregationaHsts.  Yet  I  think  it  very 
clear  that  modern  Congregationalism 
does  not  accept  the  doctrine  of  eternal 
punishment  as  it  was  preached  by  Jona- 
than Edwards,  or  even  by  Charles  G. 
Finney.  It  may  still  be  entertained  as 
a  scholastic  theory  by  a  few  minds.     It 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

may  be  occasionally  preached  in  isolated 
pulpits.  But  it  is  not  found  to  any  ex- 
tent in  the  ministry  of  even  the  more 
conservative  pulpits  of  to-day,  and 
certainly  not  in  the  pulpits  of  Liberal 
Congregationalists.  Personally  I  ab- 
solutely disown  it.  I  do  not  believe 
that  any  one  of  God's  creatures  will  be 
kept  by  God  in  eternal  existence  simply 
that  he  may  go  on  in  sin  and  misery 
forever.  The  proposition  has  long  since 
become  spiritually  unthinkable  to  me. 
I  might  perhaps  believe  that  a  soul 
could  suffer  eternally;  but  I  cannot 
believe  that  any  being  that  God  ever 
made  will  be  kept  in  existence  by  God 
that  he  may  go  on  in  sin  eternally. 

What  was  the  old  doctrine  of  eternal 
punishment?  The  Savoy  Confession, 
up  to  the  middle  of  this  century,  was 
the  recognized  expression  of  Orthodox 
Congregationalism.  Not  that  it  was 
binding  on  Orthodox  Congregationahsts; 
but  it  was  the  only  historic  creed  they 
possessed.  Except  in  the  matter  of 
polity,  and  one  or  two  minor  matters, 
it  was  identical  with  the  Westminster 
Confession  of  Faith;  and  this  was  the 
substance  of  its  statement:  It  de- 
clared that  our  first  parents  fell  by 


10 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

eating  the  forbidden  fruit;  that,  they 
being  the  root  of  all  mankind,  their 
guilt  was  imputed  and  their  sinful  and 
corrupted  nature  was  conveyed  to  all 
their  posterity;  that  as  a  result  we  are 
^'utterly  indisposed,  disabled,  and  made 
opposite  to  all  good;^^  that  from  the 
race  thus  lost  and  ruined  in  the  Fall, 
'^by  the  decree  of  God,  for  the  mani- 
festation of  his  glory,  some  men  and 
angels  are  predestined  unto  everlasting 
life,  and  others  are  fore-ordained  to 
everlasting  death  ;'^  that  those  not 
effectually  called,  God  was  pleased, 
''for  the  glory  of  his  sovereign  power 
over  his  creatures,  to  pass  by,  and  to 
ordain  them  to  dishonor  and  wrath  for 
their  sin,  to  the  praise  of  his  glorious 
justice;'^  and  that  those  ''not  elected, 
although  they  may  be  called  by  the 
ministry  of  the  Word,  and  may  have 
some  common  operations  of  the  Spirit, 
yet  they  never  truly  come  to  Christ 
and  therefore  cannot  be  saved/' 

Specifically,  and  clause  by  clause,  I 
disown  that  statement.  I  do  not  ac- 
cept it  "for  substance  of  doctrine/'  I 
do  not  believe  that  we  are  "utterly 
indisposed,  disabled,  and  made  oppo- 
site to  all  good/'     I  do  not  believe  that 


11 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

some  men  are  fore-ordained  to  ever- 
lasting death.  I  do  not  believe  that  it 
has  pleased  God  to  pass  any  by  and 
ordain  them  to  dishonor  and  wrath. 
Least  of  all  do  I  believe  that  men, 
strive  however  much  they  may,  cannot 
be  saved  unless  they  have  something 
more  than  the  call  of  the  ministry  of 
the  Word  and  ^Hhe  common  operations 
of  God's  spirit. '^ 

This  doctrine  is  inconsistent  with  the 
character  of  a  righteous  God.  I  might 
fear  such  a  God;  I  might  tremble  be- 
fore such  a  God;  I  might,  because  I 
was  a  coward,  obey  such  a  God;  but  I 
could  not  reverence  such  a  God.  It  is 
inconsistent  with  the  faith  that  Jesus 
Christ  is  God  manifest  in  the  flesh;  for 
it  was  not  his  nature  to  pass  any  by  or 
to  ordain  any  to  dishonor  and  wrath. 
It  is  inconsistent  with  the  Scripture; 
inconsistent  with  the  parable  of  the 
prodigal  son,  which  is  Christ's  epitome 
of  the  Gospel;  inconsistent  with  the 
declaration  of  Paul  that  ^^  every  knee 
shall  bow  and  every  tongue  confess 
Jesus  Christ  to  be  the  Lord,  to  the 
glory  of  God  the  Father;''  inconsistent 
with  the  very  chapters  of  Romans  on 
which  it  is  supposed  to  be  founded;  for 


12 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

they  close  with  the  declaration  that 
^^  God  hath  concluded  all  in  unbelief ,  that 
he  might  have  mercy  upon  all;"  incon- 
sistent with  the  splendid  picture  John 
paints,  of  the  time  when  every  creature 
that  is  in  heaven  and  on  the  earth  and 
under  the  earth,  and  such  as  are  in  the 
sea,  shall  give  praise  and  glory  to  the 
God  of  their  salvation.  This  doctrine 
of  the  particular  choice  of  some  to  glory 
and  virtue,  and  the  predetermined 
choice  of  others  to  wrath  and  dishonor, 
I  disown  as  unphilosophical,  antago- 
nistic to  the  instincts  of  justice  in 
humanity,  paralyzing  to  Christian  ac- 
tivity, dishonoring  to  God,  unethical, 
unscriptural,  irreverent,  and  untrue. 

And  yet  I  am  not  a  Universalist.  I 
am  going  to  tell  you  why  not. 

We  may  approach  Hfe  from  either 
one  of  two  points  of  view.  We  may 
approach  it  by  the  study  of  phenomena 
from  without,  or  by  the  interrogation 
of  consciousness  from  within.  If  we  ap- 
proach it  by  a  study  of  the  phenomena 
without,  we  come  to  the  inevitable  con- 
clusion that  not  only  physical  nature, 
but  human  nature,  is  under  great 
divine  laws,  and  under  a  great  divine 
Lawgiver.     If    there    were    not    such 


13 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

laws,  if  life  were  a  mere  aggregation  of 
individual  wills,  no  science  of  human 
life  would  be  possible.  There  could 
be  neither  history  nor  philosophy  nor 
sociology  nor  ethics,  because  the 
science  of  life  is  not  the  mere  reporting 
of  phenomena,  nor  the  mere  classifica- 
tion of  phenomena  in  their  respective 
pigeon-holes;  it  is  the  recognition  of 
the  laws  under  which  the  phenomena 
take  place.  The  existence  of  sociology, 
or  the  law  of  society;  of  ethics,  or  the 
law  of  the  moral  Hfe;  of  commercial 
law,  or  the  law  of  the  shop  —  the  very 
existence  of  these  laws  is  itself  demon- 
stration that  the  world  of  men,  like  the 
world  of  nature,  is  under  law  and  a 
Lawgiver.  But  we  may  also  interro- 
gate life  from  within;  and  if  we  do,  the 
first  and  fundamental  fact  we  confront 
is  the  fact  of  our  own  freedom.  Free- 
dom with  hmitations,  freedom  in  a  cer- 
tain domain,  freedom  within  narrow 
boundaries;  but,  within  those  bound- 
aries, absolute  freedom.  It  is  in  vain 
for  Jonathan  Edwards  to  tell  us  that 
man  is  like  a  pair  of  scales  and  always 
inclines  to  the  heaviest  motive,  other- 
wise he  would  incHne  to  the  lightest 
motive,   which   is   a   contradiction   in 


14 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

terms.  We  come  back  to  Samuel  John- 
son's utterance,  ''All  argmnent  is  against 
the  freedom  of  the  will;  we  know  we 
are  free,  and  that's  the  end  on't/' 

The  men  who  take  their  point  of 
view  from  the  outward  world,  studying 
law  from  phenomena,  become  in  the- 
ology Calvinists;  the  men  who  take 
their  point  of  view  from  consciousness, 
studying  it  from  within,  become  Ar- 
minians.  I  adopt,  and  I  think  most 
Liberal  Congregationahsts  adopt,  the 
second  method.  We  beheve  that  the 
ultimate  fact  in  human  life  is  the  free- 
dom of  the  individual  will.  We  start 
from  what  we  know,  and  reach  out 
from  that  toward  the  unknown.  I 
know  that  I  can  choose  the  good,  and 
therefore  I  can  choose  the  evil.  What 
I  find  true  in  myself  I  beheve  to  be  true 
in  every  other  man;  he  can  choose  the 
good,  and  therefore  he  can  choose  the 
evil.  And  while  I  wistfully  desire  — 
yea,  and  sometimes  devoutly  hope  — 
that  when  the  great  drama  of  life  here 
and  hereafter  is  ended,  all  God's  crea- 
tures will  have  chosen  the  good  —  I  do 
not  know.  If  I  were  a  Calvinist,  I 
should  be  a  Universahst.  If  I  beheved 
that  God  could  make  all  men  righteous, 

15 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

I  should  be  sure  that  he  would  make  all 
men  righteous;  otherwise  he  would  not 
be  a  righteous  God.  But  I  start  from 
the  other  pole.  I  begin  with  my  own 
absolute  freedom.  I  recognize  as  a 
fact,  in  my  life,  in  my  philosophy,  and 
in  my  preaching,  that,  in  the  last 
analysis,  the  destiny  of  every  man  is  in 
his  own  hands.  Father  may  persuade, 
mother  may  entice,  influences  may 
environ,  God  himself  may  surround 
with  all  possible  persuasions,  but  in  the 
last  analysis  the  destiny  of  every  man 
is  in  his  own  hands.  And  what  he  will 
do  with  it  I  do  not  know. 

Why,  if  God  be  good,  has  he  made  a 
world  in  which  there  is  sin?  Why  has 
he  not  made  a  world  sinless?  Could  he 
not?  Certainly;  he  not  only  could, 
he  has.  The  birds  are  sinless.  But  he 
could  not  make  a  world  in  which  are 
free  moral  agents  able  to  choose  the 
good  without  giving  them  at  the  same 
time  power  to  choose  the  evil.  Power 
to  choose  the  one  is  power  to  choose 
the  other;  and  a  world  where  there  are 
some  men  who  choose  shame,  dishonor, 
sin,  and  death,  is  a  better  world,  I  dare 
to  say,  than  a  world  made  of  machines 
that  could  choose  neither  the  good  nor 


16 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

the  evil.  I  dare  believe  that  a  uni- 
verse in  which  there  were  both  a  heaven 
and  a  hell  would  be  a  better  universe 
than  one  in  which  there  was  neither, 
because  a  universe  of  beings  unable  to 
choose  heaven  rather  than  hell. 

Do  I,  then,  deny  the  omnipotence  of 
God?  It  depends  upon  what  we  mean 
by  omnipotence.  If  by  omnipotence 
we  mean  that  God  can  do  everything 
by  a  simple  act  of  the  will,  I  do  deny  it. 
If  God  can  do  everything  by  a  simple 
edict  of  the  will,  there  is  no  room  left 
for  wisdom;  for  wisdom  consists  in 
using  means  to  an  end.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  God  can  compel  a  free  moral 
agent  to  be  virtuous,  because  he  would 
then  cease  to  be  a  free  moral  agent  and 
would  cease  to  be  virtuous.  Omnipo- 
tence cannot  make  men  virtuous  against 
their  will,  because  virtue  consists  in  the 
free  choice  of  righteousness  by  a  will 
which  is  not  coerced.  By  omnipotence 
in  the  moral  realm  I  mean  that  God  can 
do  all  things  in  that  realm  consistent 
with  preserving  the  freedom  of  the 
moral  agent  whom  he  is  making  in  his 
own  image  —  so  making  him  that  he 
may  be  righteous  as  God  is  righteous, 
by  choosing  the  right  and  eschewing 

17 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

the  evil  under  no  compulsion.  If  it 
were  possible  for  God  to  hypnotize  the 
race,  so  that  under  his  hypnotic  in- 
fluence every  man  should  choose  the 
crown  of  glory,  I  would  not  have  him 
do  it,  for  then  all  the  virtue  would  be 
in  the  hypnotizer  and  not  in  the  hypno- 
tized; and  the  glory  of  humanity  is  this, 
that  when  at  last  man  is  completed,  he 
will  stand  in  his  moral  nature  indepen- 
dent, holding  the  helm  of  his  own  des- 
tiny and  directing  his  own  course. 

Sometimes  you  see  a  child  sitting  on 
the  seat  by  his  father  driving  the  span. 
His  father  holds  the  reins  in  front  of 
the  child;  the  boy  thinks  he  is  guiding 
the  horses,  but  he  is  not.  So  some  men 
believe  in  the  freedom  of  the  will. 
Sometimes  you  will  see  that  same  father 
allowing  the  boy  to  hold  the  reins,  but 
sitting  by  his  side,  ready  to  snatch  them 
the  moment  any  peril  comes.  So  other 
men  believe  in  the  freedom  of  the  will. 
The  most  awful  and  the  most  splendid 
fact  in  human  life  to  me  is  this  —  that 
God  puts  the  reins  of  my  destiny  into 
my  own  hands,  and  neither  holds  the 
reins  before  me  nor  behind  me.  So, 
preaching  the  illimitable  love  and  the 
infinite  grace  of  God  our  Saviour  unto 


18 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

men,  repudiating  all  particularism  in 
theology,  repudiating  the  notion  that 
the  grace  of  God  ends  for  any  man  at 
death,  believing  with  all  my  heart  that 
all  the  resources  of  God^s  love  and  life 
and  power  are  pledged  to  the  restora- 
tion of  all  men  to  righteousness,  holi- 
ness, and  happiness  —  still  my  last 
message  to  the  men  and  women  to 
whom  I  speak  is  this:  I  set  before  you 
life  and  death;  therefore  choose  life, 
that  both  thou  and  thy  seed  may  live. 
You  will  understand  that  I  am  not 
trying  to  persuade  you  to  my  faith. 
Not  even  an  editor,  not  even  an  Ameri- 
can editor,  not  even  a  New  York  City 
editor,  would  have  the  effrontery  to 
come  into  a  denominational  congress 
and  argue  that  its  creed  was  erroneous. 
I  am  only  trying  to  point  out  the  dif- 
ference, as  it  seems  to  me,  between 
your  faith,  if  I  understand  it  aright, 
and  my  faith.  I  enter  into  no  cheap 
slander  of  a  sister  church,  neither  here, 
nor,  as  God  is  my  witness,  anywhere 
else.  I  do  not  argue  against  the  asser- 
tion, sometimes  found  in  circulation  in 
unthinking  circles,  that  God  is  too  mer- 
ciful to  punish  sin;  for  I  do  not  under- 
stand this  to  be  Universalist  doctrine. 


19 


HUMAN   DESTINY 

Whatever  the  UniversaUsm  of  the  past 
may  have  been,  I  have  never  found  in 
any  evangehcal  Uterature  a  more  ter- 
rible indictment  of  sin,  or  a  more  awful 
portrayal  of  its  inevitable  consequences, 
than  in  some  Universalist  literature. 
The  question  is  not.  Will  a  merciful 
God  save  all  men  from  suffering?  it  is, 
Can  he  save  all  men  from  sin?  For  sal- 
vation is  character;  redemption  is  right- 
eousness; and  nothing  could  be  more 
appalling  to  the  spiritually-minded 
soul  than  the  contemplation  of  a  world 
in  which  men  were  allowed  to  go  on  in 
selfishness  and  sin  forever,  and  yet  in 
bhssful  indifference  and  unconcern. 

It  is  possible  that  some  of  you  will 
say.  Why,  this  is  just  our  beUef !  Why 
are  you  not  a  Universalist?  Then  I 
will  answer  by  another  question:  If 
this  is  your  belief,  why  are  you  not 
Congregationalists?  We  are  nearer  to- 
gether, perhaps,  than  we  have  thought. 
I  thank  your  chairman  for  the  compli- 
ment he  has  given  to  the  Orthodox 
Congregationalists  in  conceding  to  them 
progress  in  theology,  but  I  cannot  in 
modesty  take  all  that  compliment  to 
my  own  church;  I  think  the  Universal- 
ists  have  made  some  progress  in  the- 


20 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

ology  also.  I  will  not  recall  the  history 
of  the  past,  but  I  will  say  this:  all  that 
the  Orthodoxy  of  the  past  has  said  re- 
specting the  greatness  of  the  awful 
sanctity  of  God's  law,  I  beheve  the 
Universalism  of  to-day  says;  and  all 
that  the  Universalism  of  the  past  has 
said  about  the  illimitable  love  of  God, 
the  Father  of  all  the  living,  I  believe 
the  Liberal  Congregationalism  of  to- 
day says.  Certainly  of  this  I  am  sure 
—  the  action  of  more  than  one  recent 
Congregational  Council  bears  witness 
to  the  fact  —  that  the  battle  for  hberty 
has  been  fought  and  won  in  the  denom- 
ination which  I  am  unofficially  repre- 
senting here  to-night.  Congregational- 
ists  would  not  ordain  to  the  ministry 
any  man  who  disbelieved  in  the  solemn 
sanction  and  the  inviolability  of  God's 
law;  nor  any  man  who  thought  that 
there  was  any  other  escape  from  pen- 
alty than  repentance  from  sin  and  loyal 
acceptance  of  God's  law  manifested  by 
obedience  in  daily  hfe.  But  any  man 
who  believes  that  the  law  of  God  is  in- 
violable; that  punishment  follows  its 
infraction;  that  remedy  follows  repent- 
ance and  never  follows  nor  can  follow 
without  repentance;  and  that  this  rem- 


21 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

edy  is  revealed  in  and  through  Jesus 
Christ,  will  receive  ordination,  though 
he  believe,  as  some  Congregationalists 
do,  that  some  men  will  never  repent, 
and  will  live  in  sin  and  misery  forever; 
or,  as  some  other  Congregationalists  do, 
that  some  men  will  never  repent,  and 
will  therefore  cease  to  exist;  or,  as  still 
other  Congregationalists  do,  that,  under 
the  persuasions  of  Almighty  God,  all 
men  will  at  last  repent,  and  through 
the  door  of  repentance  be  brought  back 
to  holiness  and  happiness  and  God;  or, 
as  I  think  the  majority  of  Congre- 
gationalists do  to-day,  decline  to  be 
dogmatic  on  that  question  altogether. 
The  Congregational  Church,  thank 
God,  is  large  enough  for  them  all! 

From  Congregationalists  who  are  not 
and  cannot  be  dogmatic  concerning  the 
future,  I  bring  greetings  to  you,  fellow 
Christians  and  fellow  Congregational- 
ists, who  think  you  know  what  we  can 
only  hope.  In  a  common  faith  in  God 
the  Universal  Father;  in  a  common 
faith  in  Jesus  Christ  his  Son,  manifest- 
ing the  life  of  God  to  the  vision  of  men; 
in  a  common  faith  in  a  full  and  free 
salvation  offered  to  all  men  here  on 
earth;  in  a  common  faith,  which  in  the 


22 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

past  has  been  denied,  in  One  whose 
mercy  endureth  forever,  we  can  join 
hands  in  working  in  faith  and  hope  and 
love  for  the  present  salvation  of  men 
from  sin  through  our  Lord  and  Saviour 
Jesus  Christ.  —  Reprinted  from  ^^  The 
Outlook''  of  Nov.  11,  1899. 


23 


HUMAN   DESTINY 


AN   OPEN   LETTER   TO  DR.   LYMAN 
ABBOTT 

Dear  Sir  :  —  No  one  can  read  your 
address,  ^'Why  I  Am  Not  a  Universalist/^ 
printed  in  the  last  number  of  The  Uni- 
versalist  Leader,  without  feehng  the 
charm  of  its  courtesy;  or  without  ad- 
miring its  fehcitous  phrase,  its  clear 
presentations,  and  its  persuasive  reason- 
ing. And  there  is  no  Universalist,  I 
am  sure,  who  will  not  be  grateful  to  you 
for  your  indignant  refusal  to  have  part 
in  the  current  ^ 'cheap  slander  of  a  sister 
church ;''  or,  who  will  not  feel  compli- 
mented by  your  unflinching  frankness, 
and  experience  profound  satisfaction  at 
finding  so  eminent  a  thinker  in  such 
comforting  proximity  to  the  position  it 
has  been  ours  so  long  to  defend  against 
stupendous  odds.  Finding  ourselves 
in  such  pleasant  accord  on  so  many 
points,  we  might  be  tempted  to  slur 
the  remaining  differences  but  for  the 
knowledge  that  Dr.  Abbott  would  be 
the  last  to  condone  a  course  like  that. 

I  agree  with  you  that  the  prime  con- 

24 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

dition  of  further  rapprochement  is  a 
clear  and  unshrinking  recognition  of 
our  real  differences;  and  you  will  agree 
with  me  that,  for  a  proper  apprecia- 
tion of  these  differences,  it  is  essential 
that  they  should  be  looked  at  from  both 
sides.  It  is  from  a  sincere  wish  to  pro- 
vide for  this,  and  in  no  controversial 
spirit,  that  I  address  to  you  this  open 
letter.  Your  statement  is  so  orderly, 
and  you  have  so  skilfully  directed  at- 
tention to  the  essentials  of  the  issue, 
that  I  feel  that  I  can  do  no  better  than 
to  follow  your  lead,  with  running  com- 
ment on  such  points  as  call  for  atten- 
tion. 

You  remind  us  very  justly  that,  ^^  We 
may  approach  life  from  either  of  two 
points  of  view.  We  may  approach 
it  by  the  study  of  phenomena  from 
without,  or  by  the  interrogation  of 
consciousness  from  within.  If  we  ap- 
proach it  by  a  study  of  phenomena  from 
without,  we  come  by  the  inevitable 
conclusion  that  not  only  physical  nature, 
but  human  nature,  is  under  great  di- 
vine laws,  and  under  a  great  divine 
Law-giver.^'  But  studying  life  from 
within,  ''The  first  and  fundamental 
fact  we  confront  is  the  fact  of  our  own 


25 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

freedom,  —  freedom  with  limitations, 
freedom  in  a  certain  domain,  freedom 
within  narrow  boundaries;  but,  within 
those  boundaries,  absolute  freedom/' 
With  equal  justice  you  go  on  to  say: 
'^The  men  who  take  their  point  of  view 
from  the  outward  world,  studying  law 
from  phenomena,  become  in  theology 
Calvinists  [necessitarians];  the  men 
who  take  their  point  of  view  from  con- 
sciousness, studying  it  from  within,  be- 
come Arminians  [libertarians].  I  adopt, 
and  I  think  most  Liberal  Congrega- 
tionahsts  adopt,  the  second  method/' 
I  am  impelled  to  ask.  Would  it  not  be 
more  scientific  to  study  the  problem 
from  both  points  of  view?  And  should 
it  surprise  any  student  of  the  history  of 
philosophic  thought  to  find  that  there 
is  a  great  truth  at  the  center  of  Cal- 
vinism, and  a  great  truth  in  Arminian- 
ism?  Beheving  that  this  universe  is 
essentially  rational,  that  one  part  is 
ultimately  consistent  with  all  other 
parts,  and  that  nothing,  therefore,  can 
be  studied  in  isolation,  may  I  not  ad- 
dress myself  without  misgiving  to  the 
overwhelming  evidence  of  sovereignty 
on  the  one  hand,  and  to  the  indubitable 
consciousness  of  freedom  on  the  other? 


26 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

And  doing  this,  may  I  not  find  myself 
landed,  not  in  Liberal  Congregation- 
alism, not  in  agnosticism  as  regards 
human  destiny,  but  in  the  inspiring 
faith  that,  in  the  end,  every  knee  shall 
bow  to  the  supremacy  of  righteousness, 
and  every  tongue  confess  the  beauty  of 
holiness?  I  cannot  admit  that  we  are 
shut  up  to  the  alternative  which  you 
present  —  absolute  predestination  on 
the  one  hand,  and  unconditional  liberty 
on  the  other.  The  disjunction  is  ^'im- 
perfect/' We  may,  I  submit,  adopt 
the  conception  of  a  determinism  in  the 
world  consistent  with  real  freedom  — 
a  determinism  as  respects  the  final 
destiny  of  men  and  the  ultimate  ends 
of  creation;  and  a  freedom  which, 
though  restricted,  and  suitably  safe- 
guarded against  irretrievable  disaster, 
is,  nevertheless,  genuine  —  a  freedom 
large  as  the  psychologists  will  permit  us 
to  claim,  but  entirely  adequate  for  the 
explanation  of  human  responsibihty ,  and 
for  the  requirements  of  ethical  science. 
^*If  I  were  a  Calvinist,  I  should  be  a 
Universalist.  If  I  beheved  that  God 
could  make  all  men  righteous,  I  should 
be  sure  that  he  would  make  all  men 
righteous;  otherwise  he  would  not  be 

27 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

a  righteous  God/'  Unquestionably. 
But  the  imphcation  that,  Not  being  a 
Calvinist  you  are  not  permitted  to  be  a 
Universalist,  appears  to  me  to  be  singu- 
larly unwarranted;  and  yet,  it  is  upon 
this  implication  that  the  whole  weight 
of  your  agnosticism  is  made  to  rest. 
Every  Universalist  rejects  Calvinistic 
necessitarianism  as  emphatically  as  you 
do;  but  I  fail  to  see  that  this  rejection 
requires  him  to  hold  the  will  to  be  law- 
less and  human  destiny  to  be  indeter- 
minable. Necessitated  action  is  indeed 
uniform  and  predictable;  but  we  are  by 
no  means  permitted  to  convert  this,  as 
you  seem  to  have  done,  and  hold  that 
uniform  and  predictable  action  must 
be  necessitated.  Free  will  undoubtedly 
precludes  necessitation  of  conduct  in 
detail,  but  not  certainty  as  to  the  sequel. 
The  disposition  to  assume  this  is,  we 
may  suspect,  our  pernicious  inheritance 
from  once  prevalent  but  utterly  in- 
defensible conceptions  of  freedom.  Be- 
lieving in  the  ^^  Liberty  of  Indifference,'' 
believing  that  the  will  is  an  inde- 
pendent and  mysterious  something, 
capable  of  blind  initiative,  but  intrin- 
sically capricious,  indifferent  to  motive, 
and  absolved  from  all  relation  to  the 


^ 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

intellect  and  the  appetencies,  it  were 
easy  to  suppose  that  human  destiny 
must  forever  be  indeterminate  and 
unpredictable.  I  cannot  here  escape 
the  impression  that  a  conception  of 
freedom,  which  I  supposed  had  long 
been  shelved  as  a  philosophical  curiosity, 
has  somehow  got  abroad,  and  been  un- 
wittingly admitted  as  the  hidden  pre- 
mise of  your  conclusion.  I  find  the 
psychology  and  the  ethical  philosophy 
of  the  day,  alike,  insisting  that  we  shall 
regard  the  will,  not  as  a  dislocated, 
inherently  erratic  thing,  but  as  the  ex- 
pression, or  function,  of  a  highly  com- 
plex personality,  in  which  the  feelings, 
the  intelligence,  and  the  moral  judgment 
are  always  operative  —  a  personality 
subject  by  nature  to  new  reactions  under 
changing  environments,  susceptible  to 
new  impressions,  accessible  to  new 
lights,  and  forever  haunted  by  ideals, 
which,  with  tireless  persuasiveness,  lead 
the  way  through  revolutions  of  disturb- 
ance to  an  orderly  and  consistent  life. 

The  further  implication  of  your  re- 
mark, that,  in  the  absence  of  positive 
necessitation,  there  can  be  no  deter- 
minism in  the  affairs  of  men  —  that  the 
will,  being  superior  to  compulsioriy  is 


29 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

not  amenable  to  control,  —  seems  to  me 
equally  inadmissible.  Is  there  any  one 
who  doubts  that  the  forces  of  educa- 
tion and  moral  suasion  may  result  in 
the  determination  of  a  man's  life,  as 
real,  as  enduring,  as  any  that  can  be 
achieved  by  the  exertion  of  the  most 
despotic  power?  Such  moral  control 
may  indeed  be  more  elastic,  and  less 
immediate  in  its  effects,  than  physical 
control;  but,  in  the  case  of  beings  en- 
dowed with  reason  and  sensibility,  it 
may  prove  no  less  positive  —  no  less 
certain  as  regards  ultimate  results. 
Without  interfering  with  the  free  play 
of  any  hand,  without  predestinating  the 
results  of  a  single  throw,  it  is  possible 
for  God  to  so  weight  wrong  action  with 
adverse  conditions  and  painful  conse- 
quence that  the  game  infallibly  will  be 
his.  It  may  be  that  every  wandering 
son  of  God  is  doomed  to  reappear  at 
his  father's  gate  —  though  his  return 
may  prove  late  and  be  as  pitiful  as  the 
return  of  the  Prodigal.  The  ^4ast 
analysis''  undoubtedly  ^^ shows  that  a 
man's  destiny  is  in  his  own  hands"; 
but  does  it  not  also  show  that  the  hands 
in  which  that  destiny  is  placed  are  the 
hands  of  a  being  not  wholly  whimsical, 


30 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

but  essentially  rational  and  teachable? 
By  virtue  of  his  free  agency  a  man  may, 
it  is  true,  plunge  from  the  moral  orbit 
and  speed  away  into  darkness  and  un- 
explored distance;  but,  in  ''the  last 
analysis,''  we  shall  find  that  he  is  so 
constituted  that  he  cannot  be  indiffer- 
ent to  his  experience  —  he  cannot  be 
unmindful  of  the  receding  light,  the 
growing  chill,  the  swiftly  gathering  perils 
and  menacing  portents;  and,  above  all, 
he  cannot  escape  a  gravitation  which, 
searching  his  elemental  life,  lays  a  re- 
lentless grip  upon  his  conscience  and 
his  reason.  It  is  by  warrant  of  such 
disclosures  of  the  ''last  analysis''  that 
we  venture  to  predict  the  free  reflexion 
of  the  wild  career  and  infallible  return 
to  sanity  and  moral  equilibrium. 

To  me  there  is  profound  pathos  in 
your  remark:  "While  I  may  wistfully 
desire  —  yea,  and  sometimes  devoutly 
hope,  that  when  the  great  drama  of 
life  here  and  hereafter  is  ended,  all 
God's  creatures  will  have  chosen  the 
good  —  I  do  not  know  J'  Nevertheless, 
it  suggests  to  me  something  very  like  a 
redudio  ad  absurdum.  If  the  human 
will  is  so  inherently  erratic  that  we  can- 
not know  what  any  man  will  do  with 


31 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

his  destiny,  we  cannot  know  but  that 
every  soul  will  finally  choose  the  evil; 
we  cannot  know  but  that  the  kingdom 
of  God  will  be  totally  subverted;  we 
cannot  know  but  that  heaven  will  at 
last  be  willingly  vacated  by  every 
tenant,  and  hell  peopled  of  free  choice 
by  the  whole  race  of  Adam;  indeed, 
I  cannot  see  —  and  this  will  greatly 
trouble  us  all  —  I  cannot  see  that  Dr. 
Abbott  himself,  dowered  as  he  is  with 
this  fatal  gift  of  freedom,  can  ever 
know  what  Dr.  Abbott  will  do  with 
Dr.  Abbott's  destiny!  If,  in  truth, 
liberty  is  ultimately  so  indistinguish- 
able from  license,  who  can  say  that  the 
high-minded  editor  of  The  Outlook  may 
not  in  the  very  next  issue  dedicate 
that  respectable  journal  to  the  unblush- 
ing service  of  obscenity?  Who  can  say 
that  He,  whom  the  psalmist  devoutly 
describes  as  without  variableness  or 
shadow  of  turning,  may  not  at  any 
time,  by  reason  of  larger  liberty,  take 
on  the  levity  of  a  weathercock? 

Again,  you  remark  with  convincing 
emphasis,  ^^Omnipotence  cannot  make 
men  virtuous  against  their  will.''  But, 
might  I  not  suggest  that  it  is  within  the 
scope  of  omnipotence,  directed  by  in- 


32 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

finite  wisdom,  and  impelled  by  infinite 
love,  so  to  marshall  the  agencies  of 
discipline,  education,  and  persuasion, 
as  to  lead  men  to  finally  will  to  be 
virtuous? 

^'If  it  were  possible  for  God  to  hyp- 
notize the  race,  so  that  under  hypnotic 
influence  every  man  should  choose  the 
crown  of  glory,  I  would  not  have  him 
do  it/'  Nor  would  we.  But,  if  it  were 
possible  for  God  so  to  rationalize  the 
race  by  the  insistence  of  ever  unfolding 
truth  and  ever  mounting  ideals,  and 
so  to  moralize  it  by  experience  of  the 
inevitable  fruits  of  righteousness  and 
unrighteousness,  that  it  would,  at  last, 
freely  and  rejoicingly  choose  the  crown 
of  glory  —  would  you  not  have  him  do 
it?  Conceiving  that  God  could  do  this 
if  he  would,  believing  with  you  that  he 
would  if  he  could,  we  cannot  under- 
stand why  we  should  doubt  that  he 
will. 

Following  up  your  happy  illustration 
of  the  nature  of  man's  freedom,  you 
exclaim:  ^^God  puts  the  reins  of  my 
destiny  into  my  own  hands,  and  neither 
holds  them  before  nor  behind  me."  Be 
it  so;  you  may  turn  to  the  right,  or  to 
the  left,  as  you  will;  but  infallibly  to 


33 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

learn  that  the  way  of  the  transgressor 
is  hard,  while  the  path  of  the  just  is  as 
the  shining  Hght  that  shineth  more  and 
more  unto  the  perfect  day.  And  when 
that  lesson  is  once  brought  home  to  you, 
need  there  be  a  doubt  regarding  the  use 
you  will  make  of  ^'the  reins '7 

^^And  the  glory  of  humanity  is  this, 
that  when  at  last  man  is  completed,  he 
will  stand  in  his  moral  nature  indepen- 
dent, holding  the  helm  of  his  own  des- 
tiny and  directing  his  own  course/'  I 
feel  with  you  the  inspiration  of  that 
glowing  vision;  but  I  picture  that  man 
as  one  much  tried  by  storm  and  calm 
—  oft  seduced  by  wanton  winds  —  oft 
betrayed  by  treacherous  currents  —  oft 
bewildered  by  mirage,  and  misled  by 
wandering  lights;  but  who  now,  dis- 
illusioned and  free,  with  clear  eye  and 
high  resolve,  sets  his  prow  unswervingly 
to  the  pole  star  of  the  moral  order. 

And  now,  my  dear  Sir,  after  these 
reiterated  explanations  and  protests, 
may  we  not  hope  that,  if  again  you 
are  tempted  to  associate  Universalism 
with  Fatalism,  as  on  another  occasion, 
or  with  Calvinism  as  on  this,  you  will 
have  the  fairness  to  explain  that  it  is 
not  Fatalism  of  the  Asiatic  type;  that 


U 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

it  is  not  Predestination  of  the  Calvin- 
istic  type;  that  it  is  not  even  Deter- 
minism of  the  scientific  type;  that  it 
is  not,  in  fact,  determinism,  or  predesti- 
nation, or  fatahsm,  in  any  sense  that 
would  not  be  entirely  acceptable  to  the 
foremost  defenders  of  libertarian  doc- 
trine to-day,  and  that  is  not  entirely 
compatible  with  your  own  ^^  freedom 
within  narrow  boundaries/'  And  will 
you  not  bear  witness  for  us,  that  the 
whole  front  of  our  offending  is  this,  we 
believe 

''  There's  a  Divinity  that  shapes  our  ends, 
Rough-hew  them  as  we  may." 

I  am  yours  with  sincere  respect, 

W.   G.  TOUSEY. 


35 


HUMAN    DESTINY 


REJOINDERS 

[Note.  —  Dr.  Abbott's  rejoinder  to  the  foregoing  letter  was 
printed  in  The  Outlook  of  Dec.  16.  This  rejoinder  will  be  found 
cited  in  full  in  Professor  Tousey's  reply,  which  follows,  and  which 
first  appeared  in  The  Universalist  Leader  of  Dec.  22.] 

In  The  Outlook  of  Dec.  16,  Dr.  Abbott 
prints  what  purports  to  be  a  fair  pres- 
entation of  the  chief  points  of  my 
^^Open  Letter.'^  His  brief  rejoinder 
has  particular  reference  to  the  follow- 
ing passage:  '^By  virtue  of  his  free 
agency  a  man  may,  it  is  true,  plunge 
from  the  moral  orbit  and  speed  away 
into  darkness  and  unexplored  distance; 
but,  in  the  4ast  analysis,'  we  shall 
find  that  he  is  so  constituted  that  he 
cannot  be  indifferent  to  his  experience 
—  he  cannot  be  unmindful  of  the  re- 
ceding hght,  the  growing  chill,  the 
swiftly  gathering  perils  and  portents; 
and,  above  all,  he  cannot  escape  a  gravi- 
tation which,  searching  his  elemental 
life,  lays  a  relentless  grip  upon  his  con- 
science and  his  reason.  It  is  by  war- 
rant of  such  disclosures  of  Hhe  last 
analysis'  that  we  venture  to  predict 
the  free  reflexion  of  the  wild  career  and 


36 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

infallible  return  to  sanity  and  moral 
equilibrium." 

Dr.  Abbott's  sole  comment  is  this :  — 

"  In  reply  we  can  only  say  that  a  free  will, 
which  is  not  free  to  the  very  last,  seems  to  us  to 
be  not  free  at  all;  and  it  appears  to  us  more 
reasonable  and  more  reverent  to  suppose  that 
an  omnipotent  Being,  who  can  provide  that  a 
man  who  has  plunged  from  his  moral  orbit  may 
be  drawn  back  again  by  moral  gravitation, 
should  have  provided  in  the  first  place  that  no 
plunge  should  be  made.  Any  interference  with 
the  freedom  of  choice,  either  at  the  beginning 
or  the  end  of  the  plunge,  would  be  destructive 
of  virtue,  which  consists  in  freely  choosing  not 
to  make  it,  or,  having  made  it,  not  to  continue 
in  it.'' 

That  a  will  is  not  truly  free  which  is 
not  free  to  the  very  last  —  that  inter- 
ference with  freedom  of  choice,  either 
at  the  beginning  or  end  of  the  plunge, 
is  destructive  of  virtue  —  would  go 
without  saying.  But  the  declaration, 
^'It  is  more  reasonable  and  more  rev- 
erent to  suppose  that  an  omnipotent 
Being,  who  can  provide  that  a  man  who 
has  plunged  from  the  moral  orbit  may 
be  drawn  back  by  a  moral  gravitation, 
should  have  provided  in  the  first  place 
that  no  plunge  should  have  been  made,'' 
is  a  declaration  that  cannot  be  passed  so 


37 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

easily.  If,  ignoring  the  usual  and  well 
understood  meaning  of  words,  we  con- 
ceive of  ^^ moral  gravitation'^  after  the 
strict  analogy  of  physical  gravitation, 
then  the  statement  is  undoubtedly  true. 
But,  if  by  ^^  moral  gravitation '^  we  are 
to  understand  —  as  in  propriety  we 
ought  to  understand,  and  as  by  the 
express  terms  of  the  passage  cited  we 
are  required  to  understand  —  a  ten- 
dency due,  not  to  compulsion,  but  to 
the  persuasiveness  of  the  reasonable  and 
the  right  —  then,  surely,  the  proposi- 
tion is  not  only  glaringly  untrue,  but 
singularly  at  variance  with  a  leading 
doctrine  of  the  Address  —  the  doc- 
trine that  it  is  more  reasonable  to  sup- 
pose that  God  would  give  men  '^liberty 
within  narrow  boundaries, '^  than  that 
he  would  compel  them  to  righteousness. 
Is  it  possible,  I  am  forced  to  ask,  that 
the  operation  of  the  forces  of  moral 
suasion  is,  for  Dr.  Abbott,  indistinguish- 
able from  positive  necessitation?  Is 
it  possible  that  he  can  think'  that  it  is 
more  reasonable  and  reverent  to  sup- 
pose that  an  omnipotent  Being  would 
chain  men  to  the  moral  orbit  —  reduce 
them  from  the  rank  of  persons  to  the 
destiny  of  things  —  when  he  might  be- 


38 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

stow  upon  them  freedom  with  its  sub- 
Hme  possibiHties  of  character,  and  yet 
insure,  through  agencies  operating  ex- 
clusively by  instruction,  discipline,  and 
persuasion, the  ultimate  ''free  reflexion'' 
of  the  wildest  career?  Adopting  a 
word  which  will  have  in  this  connec- 
tion a  peculiar  suggestiveness  to  those 
who  have  read  the  Address,  I  might 
ask:  Does  Dr.  Abbott  now  think  that 
it  is  more  reasonable  and  reverent  to 
conceive  of  God  as  the  ''Hypnotizer" 
of  the  race,  than  to  conceive  of  him  as 
its  Moral  Governor?  And  has  he  come 
to  believe  that  it  would  have  been  bet- 
ter, by  some  spell,  to  have  bound  the 
Prodigal  to  his  father's  gate,  than  to 
have  given  him  his  liberty,  and  per- 
mitted him  to  go  to  that  far  country, 
where  disenchantment  was  inevitable, 
and  where,  under  inexorable  discipline, 
it  was  certain  that  he  would  ''come  to 
himself,"  and  resolve  to  turn  back  from 
his  wanderings?  And  has  the  vision 
of  that  chastened  and  penitent  man, 
taking  "the  helm  of  his  own  destiny, 
and  directing  his  own  course,"  lost  its 
power  to  touch  the  enthusiasm  of  Dr. 
Abbott?  And  does  compulsory  recti- 
tude   now    awaken    deeper    transports 


39 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

than  virtue  achieved  through  tempta- 
tion, struggle,  and  painful  self-realiza- 
tion? I  commend  to  Dr.  Abbott's 
attention  the  quaint  but  psychologi- 
cally apt  expression  of  the  Parable, 
^'he  cajue  to  himself, ^^  and  ask:  Shall 
we  hold  with  him  that,  in  that  experi- 
ence, the  young  man  ceased  to  be  free; 
or,  with  the  great  morahsts,  that  then 
he  became  for  the  first  time  truly  free? 
Shall  we  hold  that  it  is  in  the  deliberate 
^^  reflexion, '^  or  in  the  passionate  and 
reckless  ^^  plunge, '^  that  we  have  the 
truer  and  more  unequivocal  expression 
of  free  will? 

It  would  seem  that  Dr.  Abbott's  re- 
joinder has  narrowed  the  issue  to  this: 
Is  moral  government  —  government 
through  the  agencies  of  moral  suasion 

—  incompatible  with  free  will?  I  am 
persuaded  that  we  might  be  content  to 
let  an  issue  so  simple  and,  withal,  so 
luminous,  stand  in  its  own  light,  un- 
shadowed by  a  single  comment;  but  I 
cannot  refrain  from  two  observations: 
If  Dr.  Abbott  is  right  in  his  contention 

—  if  moral  control  is  incompatible  with 
freedom,  and  destructive  of  virtue  — 
then,  when  he  undertakes  to  convert 
sinners  by  appeals  to  the  reason  and  the 


40 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

moral    sense,    he    deliberately    assails 
their  freedom;  and  in  striving  through 
moral  instrumentalities  to  make  men 
virtuous,  he,  so  far  as  successful,  makes 
virtue  for  them  impossible.     Again:  if 
Dr.  Abbott  is  right  in  his  contention, 
it  would  seem  that  when  God  ''put  into 
his  hands  the  reins  of  his  own  destiny,'' 
and  out  of  respect  for  his  freedom  re- 
fused to  ''hold  them  either  before  or 
behind,''  he  ought,  in  the  interests  of 
that  same  freedom,  to  have  gone  a  step 
further    and  paralyzed  his   cerebrum, 
lest,  learning  through  the  exercise  of 
his   intelligence   that   it   is  wiser   and 
better  in  a  world  "under  great  divine 
laws"  to  keep  the  moral  highway,  he 
should  incontinently  will  to  keep  it,  and 
so  wiUing,  abrogate  his  freedom  of  will! 
But  I  can  imagine  that  Dr.  Abbott 
may,  on  reflection,  wish  to  narrow  the 
issue  still  further;  and,  while  admitting 
that  moral  control  as  ordinarily  exer- 
cised is  not  incompatible  with  liberty, 
maintain,  nevertheless,  that  it  would 
be  incompatible  if  the  persuasives  were 
made  overwhelming  in  force  and  cer- 
tain  in   effect.     The   fallaciousness   of 
this,  I  cannot  doubt,  will  be  apparent 
enough;  but  I  may  be  pardoned  if  I 

41 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

point  out  that,  under  this  ruhng,  Dr. 
Abbott  might,  without  improperly  jeop- 
ardizing our  free  will,  continue  to  press 
upon  us  the  engaging  reasonableness  of 
his  agnosticism,  provided,  only,  he  were 
careful  not  to  make  it  too  engagingly 
reasonable  —  so  reasonable,  for  ex- 
ample, as  to  insure  our  conversion.  He 
really  must  remember  that  this  would 
be  an  indignity  to  our  humanity,  and 
destructive  of  our  freedom! 

W.    G.    TOUSEY. 


42 


CAN  GOD  BE  BAFFLED? 

A  Criticism  of  the  Logic  of  Universalism 

THE  REV.   ERIC  WATERHOUSE,   M.A.,  B.D., 
HITHER  GREEN,   LONDON 

I.   The  Criticism 

THERE  can  be  little  doubt  that 
the  strength  of  the  argument  for 
the  ultimate  universality  of  salvation 
lies  in  the  above  question.  The  Uni- 
versahst  will  argue  from  Scripture,  and 
will  plead  the  instincts  of  humanity 
and  compassion,  but  when  pressed  he 
will  always  stand  at  bay  upon  the 
ground  that  Almighty  God  cannot  be 
foiled.  His  mercy  and  justice  should 
guarantee  a  final  salvation  for  all  men; 
but  even  apart  from  these,  his  omnipo- 
tence must  secure  it.  If  it  do  not,  is 
the  taunt,  you  have  no  God,  merely  a 
demiurge,  a  workman  struggling  with 
refractory  material,  whose  handiwork 
was  so  iU-made  at  the  beginning  that 
he  forever  after  employs  himself  in 
futile  endeavors  to  set  it  right  once 
more.     Hence,  they  argue,  it  is  impera- 


43 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

tive  that  ultimately,  after  a  long  or  a 
short  time,  for  sinner  and  for  saint,  the 
soiling  and  toiling  of  this  world,  whose 
highest  attainments  are  still  spattered 
with  the  mud  from  which  it  arose,  must 
end  in  a  haven  and  heaven,  a  saints' 
rest  and  eternal  Sabbath  day. 

But  the  real  crux  of  the  matter  is 
not  the  harmonizing  of  God's  omnipo- 
tence with  the  eternal  existence  of  sin, 
but  with  the  existence  of  sin  at  all.  It 
is  not  a  question  as  to  whether  or  not 
God  is  going  to  prove  to  our  satisfac- 
tion his  omnipotence  by  finally  wind- 
ing up  the  universe  in  a  manner  we 
approve.  The  true  difficulty  is  this  — 
how  in  his  almighty  goodness  and  wis- 
dom he  thought  fit  to  allow  sin  ever  to 
enter  into  the  world. 

There  has  been  drawn  a  picture  of  a 
world,  here  or  hereafter,  where  evil  has 
burnt  itself  out,  like  the  genteel  and 
highly  respectable  paradise  Spencer 
prophesies  in  his  ^^Data  of  Ethics.'' 
Sin,  merely  a  brief  episode  in  the  cosmic 
files  of  time,  is  finally  put  down,  and  its 
trumpery  revolt  against  God  crushed 
and  squashed  forever.  Can  we  help 
asking  the  painters  of  this  elysium  why, 
if  this  be  so,  this  petty  drama  of  life, 


U 


HUMAN    DESTINY 


this  peepshow,  this  foohsh  little  flutter, 
this  storm  in  the  teacup  which  we  call 
the  world,  was  ever  allowed  to  break  in 
upon  the  ageless  serenity  of  eternal 
rest?  Apparently  the  Absolute  One, 
tired  of  his  absoluteness,  unbent  a 
while  in  play,  and  let  a  little  world  of 
men  exist  and  run  away  from  his  grasp; 
but  then,  seeing  it  was  going  too  far, 
caught  it  again,  as  the  cat  plays  with 
the  mouse.  That  is  not  an  unfair 
picture  of  the  guaranteed  and  fully  in- 
sured universe  where  even  man,  do 
what  he  will,  must  finally,  to  vindicate 
God's  omnipotence,  be  saved. 

Life  is  poor  stuff  if  this  be  all  it  means. 
There  are  some  apparently  who  find  it 
a  comfortable  thought,  but  there  are 
others  to  whom  its  very  mention  causes 
a  repulsive  nausea.  Can  the  advocates 
of  this  view  reahze  what  they  are  doing? 
They  are  tearing  all  the  meaning,  the 
reality,  the  earnestness  out  of  life  and 
offering  us  a  waxwork  puppet's  exist- 
ence. It  means  that  whether  we  swim 
or  sink,  face  life's  rebuffs  with  a  cheer 
or  slink  to  a  suicide's  end,  live  like  an 
angel  or  hve  like  a  devil,  in  the  long 
run  we  are  all  picked  up  from  the  silly 
little  stage  where  we  have  played  the 


45 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

hero  or  the  coward  —  what  matters  it 
which?  —  and  put  back  into  the  box 
when  the  play  is  over.  No  doubt  some 
kind  of  purgatory  exists  between,  but 
what  does  it  really  signify?  But  a  little 
longer  or  a  little  shorter  time  before 
we  are  all  safely  wrapt  up  in  heaven 
again:  nothing  more.  Is  that  all  life 
means?  We  fancy  we  are  free.  Is  it 
real  liberty  or  is  it  but  to  the  end  of  our 
string?  Is  life  a  real  battle  or  a  sham 
fight  where  the  Red  army  shall  beat  the 
Blue  army,  and  both  dine  together  when 
it  is  over?  Are  the  blood  and  dust 
and  sweat  of  life  just  so  much  effective 
realism,  or  are  we  carving  out  from  its 
rough  and  tumble  realities  and  destinies 
fraught  with  eternal  results?  There 
are  many  of  us  who  would  far  rather  be- 
lieve we  were  living  in  a  real  world,  at 
the  risk  of  our  own  eternal  happiness, 
than  accept  the  vain  show  of  the  Uni- 
versalist's  perfectly  safe  world.  We 
would  prefer  to  fight  the  battle,  even  if 
we  lose,  than  fight  where  we  can  neither 
win  nor  lose.  Better  to  chance  damna- 
tion in  a  real  world  than  to  be  assured 
of  salvation  in  one  unreal. 

The  Universalist  sometimes  contents 
himself,  however,  with  the  assertion  of 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

a  chance  after  death,  tacitly  assuming 
that  this  chance  will  be  enough  to  bring 
about  the  final  salvation  that  he  desires 
for  all.  With  the  possibility  of  such  a 
chance  we  are  not  concerned  here.  Let 
us  grant  it  for  the  sake  of  the  argument; 
let  us  be  generous  and  grant  a  thousand 
chances.  But  the  Universalist  position 
is  not  guaranteed  thereby  in  the  slight- 
est. The  man  who  signs  the  pledge  for 
the  first  time  is  regarded  hopefully.  He 
breaks  it  and  signs  again:  there  is  less 
hope  this  time.  A  third  lapse  and  a 
third  renewal,  and  still  less  hope.  It  is 
our  universal  experience  that  the  man 
who  fails  to  take  the  first  chance  is  more 
likely  to  fail  again  than  to  take  the 
second,  and  with  each  successive  chance 
the  probability  diminishes.  Grant  these 
chances  after  death.  Some  may  take 
them,  but  what  guaranty  have  we  that 
all  will?  If  a  man  is  free  to  choose 
then  as  now,  it  is  probable,  and  must 
always  be  possible,  that  some  will  re- 
fuse and  remain  unsaved,  and  the 
Universalist's  hope  falls  to  the  ground. 
If,  on  the  contrary,  it  be  urged  that 
the  chances  will  be  so  inviting  that 
men  cannot  refuse  them,  we  are  simply 
led  back  to  the  mock  world  of  willy- 


47 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

nilly  salvation  from  which  we  had  fled 
in  horror. 

A  further  argument  is  confidently 
based  upon  the  goodness  and  mercy  of 
God,  which,  it  is  said,  would  be  im- 
pugned, as  well  as  his  omnipotence,  if 
salvation  be  not  for  every  one  at  last. 
But  are  we  in  a  position  to  assert  any 
such  thing?  An  inhabitant  of  a  world 
where  sin,  sorrow,  and  suffering  were 
unknown  coming  to  our  world  would 
certainly  refuse  to  believe  that  these 
things  could  be  reconciled  with  the  con- 
ception of  a  God  all-just,  almighty,  and 
all-merciful.  But  we  believe  it.  Can 
it  be  alleged  that  if  God  permit  man  real 
freedom  to  decide  for  himself  his  eternal 
destiny  and  man  decides  against  his 
highest  interests,  God  is  more  impugned 
by  this  than  by  these  other  problems 
which  we  have  admitted  do  not  nulhfy 
his  mercy,  justice,  and  love?  His  ways 
are  not  always  ours,  and  his  thoughts 
are  not  comprehended  by  our  minds; 
it  is  sometimes  not  the  last  resort  of 
despair,  but  the  truest  course  of  wis- 
dom, to  bow  our  heads  and  say  before 
him,  with  Job,  ^^I  will  lay  my  hand 
upon  my  mouth.'' 

We  are  brought  back  again  to  the 


48 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

question  with  which  we  started.  We 
have  seen  that  we  can  only  accept  be- 
lief in  the  ultimate  salvation  of  all  men 
at  a  certain  price  —  a  disastrous  price; 
we  must  pay  for  our  belief  by  sacri- 
ficing our  freedom,  and  with  it  the 
reality  of  the  fight  we  are  engaged  in 
and  the  issues  it  involves.  Life  tastes 
real;  we  act  and  teach  and  preach, 
whether  we  are  Universalists  or  not,  as 
if  it  were.  But  the  apparent  contra- 
diction of  Almighty  God  being  baffled 
in  his  efforts  to  save  men  is  so  potent 
to  the  minds  of  many  that  they  accept 
its  impossibility  as  a  sufficient  reason 
for  the  final  salvation  of  all,  good  and 
bad  alike,  and  refuse  to  see  that  thereby 
they  are  committed  to  a  view  that 
empties  life  of  its  richest  and  truest 
significance. 

Yet  the  root  of  the  whole  matter  is  a 
mere  quibble  —  we  cannot  call  it  more 
—  about  the  meaning  of  the  word  om- 
nipotence, and  an  examination  of  what 
is  imphed  in  the  statement  that  God  is 
omnipotent  may  reveal  it. 

By  God's  omnipotence  is  popularly 
understood  the  power  to  do  anything 
and  everything.  Will  it  therefore  be 
argued  that  God  can  make  a  circle  with 

49 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

unequal  radii,  a  triangle  with  its  angles 
greater  or  less  than  two  right  angles,  or 
two  and  two  equal  to  five?  No  one  but 
a  madman  would  assert  that  he  could, 
working  by  plane  geometry  and  within 
the  laws  of  our  mathematics.  There 
are  therefore  apparently  mathematical 
impossibilities  to  omnipotence.  Whence, 
then,  the  inconsistency  of  there  being 
also  moral  impossibilities?  The  only 
workable  meaning  that  can  be  given  to 
omnipotence  is  not  the  power  to  do  any- 
thing and  everything  without  condi- 
tions, but  the  power  to  decide  without 
let  or  hindrance  the  conditions  under 
which  it  works.  Omnipotence  itself, 
having  chosen  to  work  under  the  con- 
ditions of  plane  geometry,  cannot 
make,  under  those  conditions,  a  circle 
of  unequal  radii,  but  omnipotence  may 
be  able  to  choose  another  geometry 
whose  laws  are  unknown  to  us.  But 
when  God  Almighty  has  chosen  his 
equation  and  laid  it  down  he  himself 
must  work  within  it  or  choose  another. 
Moreover,  it  is  plain  that  omnipo- 
tence can  only  prove  itself  omnipotence 
by  doing.  The  omnipotence  that  does 
nothing  is  a  contradiction  in  terms. 
Yet  it  is  impossible  to  do  anything  with- 


60 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

out  conditions.  So  that  to  work  under 
conditions,  which  is  assumed  to  be  a 
limitation  of  omnipotence,  is  necessary 
before  omnipotence  can  be  omnipotence 
at  all.  Absolute  unconditioned  omnip- 
otence would  be  absolute  inability  to 
determine  anything.  Instead  of  being 
the  fullest  positive  it  would  be  the 
barrenest  negative.  In  fine,  absolute 
omnipotence  is  neither  more  nor  less 
than  absolute  characterlessness;  we 
may  as  well  say  absolute  nothing.  The 
omnipotence  that  saveth  its  life  will 
lose  it;  the  omnipotence  that  loseth  its 
Hfe  will  find  it.  The  true  omnipotence 
is  the  power  —  a  power  we  but  partially 
possess  —  wholly  to  choose  its  condi- 
tions. Once  chosen,  omnipotence  and 
frailty  must  both  abide  by  them. 

Most  men,  except  hyper-Calvinists 
and  philosophical  theorists,  believe  in 
the  freedom  of  the  will.  All  men  act 
as  if  it  were  true.  But  human  freedom 
necessarily  involves  a  boundary  to 
God's  omnipotence.  If  God  has  made 
man  free  he  himself  must  respect  that 
freedom  and  not  trespass  upon  it. 
Should  it  be  said  that  such  a  thing  can- 
not be,  are  we  not  there  just  as  much 
limiting  omnipotence  in  saying  that  it 


51 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

cannot  create  free  beings  outside  of 
itself?  The  freedom  of  the  will,  in 
effect,  which  to  many  is  a  sine  qua  non 
of  true  morality,  can  only  be  estab- 
lished at  the  cost  of  sacrificing  the 
absolute  conception  of  omnipotence. 

In  brief,  then,  the  position  of  those 
who  reject  as  unproved  the  Universalist 
argument  is  this:  God  made  man  free; 
in  so  doing  the  possibility,  but  not 
the  actuality,  of  sin  was  necessarily 
allowed.  Man  by  the  abuse  of  his  free- 
dom created  the  actuality.  But  om- 
nipotent God  in  creating  man  free  must 
work  within  the  conditions  he  himself 
chose,  just  as  he  worked  within  the 
conditions  of  geometrical,  mathemati- 
cal, and  other  laws.  Hence  there  are 
moral  impossibilities  even  to  omnipo- 
tence, just  as  there  are  mechanical 
impossibilities,  and  it  is  a  moral  impos- 
sibility for  God  to  save  a  man  against 
his  will.  To  do  so  he  must  lay  down 
fresh  conditions  and  give  man  no  will. 
The  usual  Christian  teaching  tells  of 
chances  in  this  life  only.  Should  we 
grant  innumerable  chances  hereafter, 
we  only  add  somewhat  to  the  proba- 
bility of  universal  salvation,  but  do  not 
make  it  and  cannot  make  it  a  certainty. 


52 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

We  face,  therefore,  the  possibihty,  if 
not  the  fact,  of  eternal  sin  and  rebellion. 
But  this  possibihty  does  not  disturb  us 
more  than  actual  sin;  both  are  neces- 
sary consequences  of  God's  original  act 
of  making  free  human  beings,  and  are 
no  more  a  limitation  of  his  power  than 
that  act  was.  Why  God  should  choose 
to  create  man  free  is,  of  course,  another 
question,  and  one  that  must  be  confessed 
quite  insoluble  for  us.  The  point  of 
our  protest  is  that  this  is  the  real  ques- 
tion, not  the  possible  eternal  conse- 
quences of  it.  Whatever  limitation  of 
God's  omnipotence  there  was,  if  it  is  to 
be  called  a  limitation,  occurred  then. 
It  is  an  arrant  begging  of  the  question 
to  fix  upon  the  later  possibihty  of  eter- 
nal rebeUion  against  God.  But  if  our 
argument  be  sound  this  creation  of  free 
manhood  violates  only  the  technical 
sense  of  the  term  omnipotence,  and  that 
technical  sense  has  been  shown  to  be 
an  unworkable  and  therefore,  we  sub- 
mit, valueless  conception.  A  self-limi- 
tation of  omnipotence  willingly  imposed 
is  not  in  any  vahd  sense  a  limitation 
that  detracts  from  the  worth  of  the 
conception  of  omnipotence. 
We  are  now  in  a  position  to  return  to 


53 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

our  question,  ^'Can  God  be  baffled?" 
We  are  not  going  to  attempt  to  answer 
it  dogmatically.  We  have  protested 
against  the  assumption  that  it  must  be 
answered  in  the  negative,  but  we  cannot 
commit  ourselves  to  a  confident  affirma- 
tive. To  insist  that  sin  must  continue 
in  the  impenitent  soul  forever  involves 
other  and  graver  issues  outside  our 
scope:  we  do  not  know  enough  to 
dogmatize  in  so  confident  a  manner. 
All  that  this  paper  claims  to  attempt  is 
a  rebuttal  of  the  assertion  that  the 
possibility  of  eternal  sin  is  inconsistent 
with  the  Almightiness  of  God,  and  the 
assertion  that  such  possibility  —  we  do 
not  say  actuality  —  must  be  faced,  and 
can  be  faced  and  held,  at  the  sacrifice, 
not  of  God's  omnipotence,  but  of  a  use- 
less and  misleading  conception  of  it. 
We  have  denied  that  God,  who  foresaw 
and  allowed  the  possibility  of  sin  enter- 
ing the  world,  must  be  insulted  and 
baffled  by  the  possibility  of  its  remain- 
ing —  a  consequence  he  must  have 
allowed  for  and  thought  it  right  to  in- 
volve when  he  made  man  free.  Our 
customary  theology  has  recognized  this 
and  asserts  it.  It  does  not  attempt,  we 
think  wisely,  to  explain  why  it  was  per- 


54 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

mitted,  and  seldom  does  it  endeavor  to 
reconcile  it  with  God's  omnipotence. 
But  if  our  argument  be  sound,  there  is 
no  need  why  theology  should  do  so. 

Such  a  position  does  not  imply  a 
callous  consent  to  the  eternal  loss  of 
human  souls.  Our  heart's  desire  for 
Israel,  all  the  Israel  of  God,  is  that  they 
may  be  saved.  Our  quarrel  is  with  the 
terms  at  which  the  Universalist  and 
Pantheist  wish  to  purchase  universal 
blessedness.  To  do  so  they  would  have 
us  believe  in  a  tame  world:  we  prefer 
the  wild  and  free.  The  very  chance 
and  hazard  they  would  eliminate  is  for 
us  the  meaning  of  life.  They  want  a 
Hfe  polished  off  and  rounded  up:  we 
prefer  the  ragged  edge  and  unhewn 
stone.  If  in  so  doing  we  allow  the  risk 
for  others,  at  least  we  take  it  ourselves 
also.  Our  own  souls  must  stand  their 
chance,  and  we  all  contend  they  should. 
The  Universalist  wishes  to  be  sure  that 
our  souls  shall  soar  infallibly  through 
the  clouds  to  Heaven.  So  do  we,  but 
we  would  rather  run  the  risk  of  total 
loss  than  beheve  we  rise  upward  in  a 
captive  balloon.  We  would  rather 
chance  defeat  than  believe  that  God  has 
fooled  us,  that  our  struggles  here  are 


55 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

no  real  fight  at  all,  and  God  mocks  at 
our  puny  victories.  A  hope  like  this 
is  more  precious  to  us  than  consistency 
with  metaphysical  conceptions  of  the 
Absolute,  for  it  makes  life  real.  We 
are  here  to  work  the  works  of  Him  that 
sent  us  while  it  is  day,  and  somehow 
we  understand  not  the  precise  way,  but 
it  is  a  sure  instinct  of  our  hearts,  accord- 
ing as  we  are  faithful  or  unfaithful  in 
our  little,  according  as  we  succeed  or 
fail,  that  Almighty  God  in  his  Heaven, 
who  has  put  a  real  sword  into  our  hands 
and  given  us  a  place  in  his  ranks  to 
fight  his  battle,  succeeds  or  fails  with  us. 


56 


HUMAN   DESTINY 


REPLY 

By  Professor  Touset 

The  editors  of  this  Review,  indis- 
posed, as  they  explain,  to  print  a  paper 
like  the  foregoing  without  giving  the 
other  side  a  hearing,  have  submitted  it 
to  me  for  comment.  I  wish  that  the 
task  could  have  fallen  to  more  com- 
petent hands;  but  the  courteous  terms 
and  catholic  motive  of  the  request 
leave  me  no  alternative  but  prompt  and 
unquestioning  acquiescence.  Though 
it  must  transpire  that  Dr.  Waterhouse 
and  I  differ  on  what  both  would  regard 
important  particulars,  I  have  the  pleas- 
ant feeling  that  we  might  find  ourselves 
in  entire  accord  on  most  of  the  great 
questions  of  religion  and  philosophy; 
and  I  may  as  well  confess  that  it  would 
be  more  agreeable  to  me  to  bask  in 
our  agreements  than  to  buffet  amid  our 
differences.  Let  it  be  premised  that  I 
am  to  undertake  no  defense,  nor  even 
exposition  of  UniversaHsm,  further  than 
is  made  necessary  by  the  criticism  I 
am  called  to  face.     The  limited  space 


57 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

allotted  me  must  be  my  excuse,  if  the 
review  should  seem  too  summary. 

I  can  imagine  that  many  who  have 
had  their  conception  of  life  enlarged, 
clarified,  and  gloriously  illumined  by  the 
Universalist  outlook,  and  have  found 
strength  and  inspiration  in  its  blessed 
assurances,  will  think  that  I  ought  to 
repudiate  the  critic^s  ^^not  unfair 
picture  of  the  Universalist's  perfectly 
safe  world,"  and  that  I  ought  to  pro- 
test against  the  use  of  such  verbal 
pigments  as  ^^peepshow";  ^^  waxwork 
puppet's  existence,  the  very  mention  of 
which  causes  repulsive  nausea ' '  /  ^  trump- 
ery revolt  against  God'';  ^^sham  fight, 
where  the  Red  army  beats  the  Blue 
army  and  both  dine  together  when  it  is 
over";  ^^ silly  little  stage  from  which 
we  are  picked  up  and  put  back  into 
the  box  when  the  play  is  over"; 
'^mock  world  of  willy-nilly  salvation 
from  which  we  had  fled  in  horror"; 
^^ where  God  befools  us,"  and  ^' mocks 
at  our  puny  victories,"  etc.  I  am 
disposed,  however,  to  refer  such  lan- 
guage to  a  self-intoxicated  and  therefore 
irresponsible  rhetoric.  To  take  it  se- 
riously would  call  for  comment  more 
caustic  than  I  like  to  indulge  in. 


58 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

But  there  appears  in  this  connection 
a  misconception  so  radical  that  it  would 
be  inexcusable  to  pass  it  by  without  a 
word.  We  are  told  that  ''many  of  us 
would  rather  risk  our  eternal  happiness 
than  accept  the  Universahst's  perfectly 
safe  world.  We  would  prefer  to  fight 
the  battle  even  if  we  lose,  than  to  fight 
where  we  can  neither  win  nor  lose'^; 
the  imputation  being  that,  fighting  in 
''theUniversahst's  perfectly  safe  world/' 
there  can  be  neither  victory  nor  defeat. 
I  greatly  fear  that  our  critic  much  over- 
rates the  security  of  that  ''perfectly 
safe  worW;  and  I  must  warn  him  that, 
if  Universalism  be  true,  he  may  not 
think  to  find  respite  from  fighting 
either  in  skulking  or  in  defeat,  —  it  will 
be  his  doom  to  fight  till  he  wins,  though 
the  tally  of  his  defeats  should  stretch 
in  tragic  length  across  the  waste  of 
centuries  unnumbered. 

What,  then,  is  the  "logic''  to  which 
this  criticism  is  so  vigorously  addressed? 
We  are  told  that  "the  Universalist 
sometimes  contents  himself  with  the 
assertion  of  a  chance  after  death,  tacitly 
assuming  that  this  chance  will  be 
enough";  sometimes  he  "confidently 
bases   a   further   argument   upon   the 


59 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

goodness    and    mercy   of    God '^•  and 
sometimes   rests   his   contention   upon 
''the  omnipotence  of  God  apart  from 
his  goodness  and  mercy/'     Our  critic 
assails  each  of  these  arguments  in  turn, 
mcidentally  giving  hberal  space  to  an 
account  of  the  way  Universahsm  strips 
hfe  of  all  meaning,  reality,  and  zest. 
But  in  the  end,  to  our  serious  bewilder- 
ment,  we  are  expressly  assured  that 
''all  this  paper  claims  to  attempt  is 
the   rebuttal   of   the   assertion   of   the 
possibility  of  eternal  sin  as  inconsistent 
with  the  almightiness  of  God.''    Steady- 
ing our  minds  against  this  initial  ver- 
tigo, let  us  follow  the  critic  in  a  docile, 
and  not  too  captious  spirit. 

Combating  the  argument  said  to  be 
based  upon  a  chance  after  death.  Dr. 
Waterhouse,  though  non-committal  re- 
specting the  possibihty  of  such  a  chance, 
is  liberal  enough  to  grant  for  the  occa- 
sion a  "thousand  chances."  While 
gratefully  acknowledging  a  concession 
so  unusual,  I  hope  it  may  not  seem  un- 
gracious if  I  say  that  we  are  looking  for 
even  greater  liberality  at  the  hands  of 
Infinite  Mercy.  We  are  looking,  not 
merely  for  a  thousand  chances,  but  for 
a  thousand  times  a  thousand,  —  in  fact 


60 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

we  conceive  that  the  gate  will  forever 
stand  ajar  to  the  truly  penitent.  But 
this,  we  are  told,  ^'does  not  guarantee 
the  Universalist's  position  in  the  least; 
for  it  is  our  universal  experience  that 
the  man  who  fails  to  take  the  first 
chance  is  more  likely  to  fail  again  than 
to  take  the  second  chance,  and  with 
each  successive  chance -the  probability 
diminishes/'  But,  a  little  farther  on, 
we  meet  the  declaration  that,  ^'should 
we  grant  innumerable  chances  here- 
after, we  only  add  to  the  probability  of 
universal  salvation,  but  do  not  make  it 
certain/'  That  is  to  say,  successive 
chances  after  death  ^^  diminish  the  prob- 
ability'' of  universal  salvation,  and, 
at  the  same  time,  ^^add"  to  that  prob- 
ability, though  not  to  the  degree  of 
certainty!  Merely  reminding  our  critic 
that,  in  the  logical  arena,  it  has  long 
been  counted  dangerous  equestrianism 
to  ride  two  propositions  going  in  oppo- 
site directions,  it  will  be  but  consider- 
ate to  allow  him  time  comfortably 
to  adjust  himself  to  one  saddle  or  the 
other,  as  he  may  elect.  Meanwhile, 
with  no  disposition  to  aggravate  the 
situation,  I  must,  nevertheless,  remark 
in  passing,  that  no  Universalist  ascribes 


61 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

to  a  chance  after  death  any  positive 
efficacy  of  its  own;  or,  ^'assumes  that 
such  a  chance  will  be  enough  to  bring 
about  the  final  salvation  he  desires." 
Such  a  chance,  he  conceives,  merely 
affords  further  time  and  opportunity 
for  the  truly  regenerative  agencies  of 
the  divine  government  to  work  their 
slow  but  certain  work.  We  believe 
with  Bishop  Butler  that,  as  there  is  an 
innate  tendency  and  force  in  reason  to 
triumph  over  unreason,  so  in  the  moral 
world  there  is  an  innate  tendency  and 
force  in  righteousness  to  triumph  over 
unrighteousness,  which  needs  only  time 
and  a  fair  field  to  reahze  itself.  Recog- 
nizing that  this  mortal  life  is  too  brief 
for  the  consummation  of  the  vast  scheme 
and  complex  processes  of  spiritual  evo- 
lution, and  that  the  hindrances  (to  use 
Butler^s  apt  expression)  to  the  forces 
which  make  for  righteousness  are  too 
formidable  for  the  immediate  salva- 
tion of  the  more  incorrigible,  we  natu- 
rally take  a  profound  interest  in  the 
question  of  a  chance  after  death;  but 
it  can  scarcely  be  said,  that  we  ^^  con- 
tent ourselves  with  the  assertion  of  such 
a  chance,  tacitly  assuming  that  such  a 
chance  will  be  enough.'' 


62 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

^^If/'  persists  the  critic,  ^^it  be  urged 
that  the  chances  will  be  so  inviting  that 
men  cannot  refuse  them,  we  are  simply 
led  back  to  the  mock  world  of  willy- 
nilly  salvation  from  which  we  had  fled 
in  horror/'  I  may  as  well  confess  that 
I  am  at  some  loss  how  to  approach  a 
mind  that  can  see  no  difference  between 
compulsory,  ^'willy-nilly '' salvation, and 
salvation  brought  about  by  the  les- 
soning of  experience,  the  appeals  of 
love,  and  the  tireless  solicitations  of  the 
true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good.  But 
I  should  be  unfaithful  to  my  opportu- 
nity, if  in  the  light  of  his  rulings  I  did 
not  admonish  our  brother,  that,  in  his 
zealous  labors  to  save  sinners,  he  should 
resort  with  extreme  caution  to  the 
Beatitudes  of  Jesus;  and  be  scrupu- 
lously careful  not  to  make  the  ways  of 
holiness  appear  ''too  inviting, '^  lest  we 
all  should  resolve  to  walk  therein,  and 
so  be  "led  back  to  that  mock  world  of 
'willy-nilly'  salvation  from  which  we 
had  fled  in  horror!'' 

Our  critic  goes  on  to  say,  and  very 
truly,  that  "the  Universalist  confidently 
bases  a  further  argument  on  the  good- 
ness and  mercy  of  God  which  would  be 
impugned  if  salvation  be  not  for  every 


63 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

one  at  last/^  In  rebuttal  he  submits, 
that  sin,  sorrow,  and  suffering  are  now 
in  the  world;  nevertheless,  we  believe 
in  the  goodness  and  mercy  of  God; 
therefore,  we  are  estopped  from  holding 
that  eternal  sin,  sorrow,  and  suffering 
impugn  His  goodness  and  mercy.  It 
would  certainly  disconcert  me  greatly, 
if  in  the  ^4ogic  of  Universalism^^  there 
could  be  found  reasoning  comparable 
to  that,  or  any  admission  that  ^^the 
possibility  of  eternal  sin  and  rebellion 
does  not  disturb  us  more  than  actual 
sin^^;  and  I  must  lament  that  our 
esteemed  critic  did  not  take  counsel  of 
Job  earlier  in  the  paragraph,  and  'May 
his  hand  on  his  mouth''  before  it  made 
articulate  his  inability  to  see  that  the 
admission  of  the  possibility  of  moral 
evil  ('Hhe  sine  qua  non  of  true  moral- 
ity"), suitably  hedged  about,  made  ser- 
viceable to  the  upbuilding  of  character, 
and  essential  to  the  realization  of  a 
kingdom  of  righteousness,  is  less 
dark,  sinister,  and  compromising  than 
the  opening  up  to  fallible  feet  a  broad 
way  leading  to  eternal  apostasy  and 
a  pit  of  infernal,  irremediable,  and  fruit- 
less woe. 
At  last  we  are  brought  to  the  argu- 


64 


HUMAN    DESTINY 


ment  upon  which,  it  is  alleged, ''  the  Uni- 
versalist,  when  pressed,  always  stands 
at  bay''  —  the  argument  whose  rebut- 
tal is  assigned  as  ''the  sole  aim''  of  the 
paper  we   are  reviewing.     This   argu- 
ment is  conceived  to  run  as  follows  when 
reduced  to  lowest  terms:  God  in  his 
infinite  goodness  and  mercy  w^ould  have 
all  men  to  be  saved;  being  omnipotent, 
he    cannot    be    bafiled;  therefore,    the 
salvation  of  all  is  assured.     The  whole 
strength  of  this  argument,   the  critic 
tells  us,  ''rests  on  a  quibble  —  I  cannot 
call  it  more  —  about  the  word  omnipo- 
tence."    True  omnipotence,  he  insists, 
is  not  the  power  to  do  anything  and 
everything,  but  the  power  to  decide  the 
conditions  under  which  it  works.     The 
technical,  metaphysical  conception  of 
omnipotence  as  absolute  is  unworkable 
and   absurd.     "Absolute   omnipotence 
is  absolute  nothing."     God,  for  reasons 
we   cannot   fathom,    made    man    free, 
and  in  doing  so  set  bounds  to  his  own 
omnipotence;  thenceforth  it  became  a 
moral    impossibility    to    save    a    man 
against   his   will.     In   fact,    there   are 
moral  impossibilities  even  to  omnipo- 
tence, just  as  there  are  mathematical 
impossibilities. 


65 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

That  our  critic  may,  once  for  all,  be 
dispossessed  of  the  very  misleading  idea 
that  the  Universalist's  contention  is 
based  ^^on  a  quibble  about  the  word 
omnipotence/^  and  that  it  may  be  seen 
how  wide  of  the  target  liis  '^sole  aim'' 
is,  I  hasten  to  say,  that  I  regard  his 
exposition  of  omnipotence,  in  the  main, 
as  just  and  admirable,  and  to  assure 
him  that  Universalists  have  long  been 
accustomed  to  construe  that  attribute 
essentially  after  the  manner  he  enjoins. 
It  is  a  fundamental  belief  with  us  that 
God  made  man  free,  and,  so  far,  of 
course,  accepted  certain  limitations  to 
the  exercise  of  his  omnipotence.  We 
are  quite  willing  to  concede  that  omnip- 
otence cannot  ^^save  a  man  against  his 
will ''  —  not,  however,  because  of  the 
inviolableness  of  the  human  will  merely, 
but  because  of  the  very  nature  of  salva- 
tion. The  initial  element  and  very 
essence  of  salvation,  as  we  conceive  of 
it,  is  the  will  to  be  saved.  From  this 
standpoint,  to  say  that  no  man  can  be 
saved  against  his  will  is  about  as 
luminous  as  to  say  no  man  can  will 
what  is  against  his  will  —  no  man  wills 
to  forsake  sin  whose  will  is  to  follow 
sin. 


66 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

But  waiving  this,  it  will  be  more  to 
the  point  of  the  present  issue  frankly  to 
concede  for  the  occasion,  that  omnip- 
otence can  save  no  man  against  his 
will.  Nevertheless,  we  submit,  that  it 
is  easily  within  the  scope  of  omnipo- 
tence directed  by  infinite  wisdom  and 
impelled  by  infinite  love,  so  to  order 
things  that  at  last  every  man  shall,  of 
his  own  desire,  will  to  be  saved  —  and 
this,  be  it  noted,  without  resort  to  com- 
pulsion in  any  form,  but  in  calm  re- 
liance upon  the  ultimately  infallible 
agencies  of  education,  discipline,  and 
persuasion. 

Do  w^e  admit,  then,  that  God  can 
be  baffled?  Assuredly,  if  by  this  is 
meant:  can  man,  within  the  range  of 
the  liberty  that  is  his,  ignore  the  ad- 
monitions and  disregard  the  commands 
of  his  Maker?  But,  if  the  meaning  is: 
can  the  ultimate  designs  of  the  Creator, 
and  the  supreme  purpose  of  the  moral 
order,  be  made  to  miscarry,  and  finally 
result  in  defeat?  —  this,  it  is  to  be  con- 
fessed, we  cannot  believe ;  not,  however, 
because  it  would  impugn  the  omnipo- 
tence of  God,  but  because  it  w^ould 
impeach  his  intelligence,  his  justice, 
and  his  mercy,  to  whose  service  all  the 


67 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

resources  of  his  power  are  forever  dedi- 
cated. We  concede  that  God  can  be 
temporarily  ^*  baffled  '^ — if  the  unhappy 
word  must  be  used;  and  our  reproach 
is  reduced  to  this,  we  cannot  think  that 
he  will  be  ultimately  foiled  as  respects 
his  supreme  desire  and  deliberate  pur- 
pose in  creating  moral  beings. 

Down  deep,  and  underlying  the  whole 
contention  of  Dr.  Waterhouse,  will  be 
found,  I  am  led  to  think,  an  assumption 
which  will  scarcely  bear  the  light  of 
explicit  statement,  —  an  assumption  of 
the  absolute,  unconditioned  freedom  of 
the  will.  This,  I  suspect,  is  the  real 
premise  of  his  inference  that  God  can  be 
bafHed,  and  that  human  destiny  must 
forever  remain  uncertain.  To  me  it  is 
a  curious  poise  of  mind  that  can,  on 
the  one  hand,  withhold  absolute  free- 
dom of  action  from  the  Creator;  and, 
on  the  other,  so  arrogantly  claim  it  for 
the  creature,  —  when  the  experience  of 
every  hour  affords  demonstration  that 
our  freedom  is  limited  on  every  side, 
and  conditioned  so  variously  that  it 
should  not  surprise  us  that  scientific 
determinism  makes  such  easy,  though 
deplorable,  headway.  I  must  think  it 
anomalous,   at   least,   that  man   may 


68 


HUMAN    DESTINY 

baffle  the  righteous  will  of  the  Almighty, 
but  the  Almighty  may  not  finally  divert 
the  hell-bent  will  of  man.  If  the  con- 
ception of  the  absolute  omnipotence 
of  God  is  unworkable  and  absurd,  I 
submit  that  the  conception  of  the  abso- 
lute, unconditioned  freedom  of  man  is 
even  more  so. 

It  will  now  scarcely  be  necessary  to 
remark  that  it  is  distinctive  of  the 
Universahst  position  to  hold,  on  the  one 
hand,  that  man  has  been  given  a  real 
though  not  unconditioned  freedom;  and, 
on  the  other,  that  God  exercises  over 
his  creation  a  real  though  self-limited 
sovereignty.  It  will  be  seen  that  the 
logic  of  Universahsm  rests,  not  so  much 
on  the  technical  omnipotence  of  God, 
as  upon  —  may  I  say  it  —  his  com- 
mon sense.  We  conceive  that  it  would 
not  be  at  all  the  part  of  common  sense 
for  the  Creator  so  far  to  abdicate  the 
throne  of  his  kingdom  that  undisci- 
plined subjects  might  bring  on  a  reign 
of  interminable  anarchy  and  finally 
defeat  his  most  cherished  designs. 
Nevertheless,  I  must  reiterate  our  be- 
lief in  real  freedom.  We  believe  that 
the  Commander  of  the  great  school- 
ship  has  given  to  us,  so  to  speak,  the 


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HUMAN    DESTINY 

'^freedom  of  the  deck''  —  a  freedom 
large  enough  for  the  purposes  of  dis- 
cipHne  and  the  evolution  of  the  virtues; 
but  we  cannot  think  that  he  has  so  far 
rehnquished  the  helm  to  childish  hands 
that  the  ultimate  aims  of  the  voyage 
may  miscarry,  or  any  part  of  the  pre- 
cious freight  be  finally  lost. 

While  I  cannot  but  hope  to  have 
shown  that  the  logic  of  Universalism  is 
less  vulnerable  than  our  esteemed  critic 
has  imagined,  I  wish  it  might  be  mine 
to  forestall  any  accession  to  that  ^^re- 
pulsive nausea/'  from  which  it  seems 
he  suffers  when  he  contemplates  a  moral 
system  under  whose  patient  and  far- 
reaching  discipline  every  knee  must 
finally  bow,  and  every  tongue  confess 
the  beauty  of  holiness.  And,  when  I 
allow  myself  to  reflect  upon  his  dismay 
when  he  shall  discover  what  revolution 
the  Universalist  philosophy  is  working 
in  the  religious  world  to-day,  and  the 
resistless  character  of  its  progress 
among  thinking  men,  I  am  impelled  to 
hurry  to  his  side,  and  to  assure  him, 
that  though  the  Universalist  conception 
should  prevail,  all  is  not  lost  —  that 
in  a  world  where  men,  through  rugged 
ways,  must  work  out  their  own  salva- 


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HUMAN    DESTINY 


tion,  and  though  cast  down  and  sorely 
bruised  times  without  number,  must 
struggle  on  till  they  win,  —  he  may 
find  stress  equal  to  all  his  strength, 
fighting  to  suit  his  breeziest  moments, 
hazard  enough  for  his  most  reckless 
mood,  and  tragedy  sufficient  for  all  the 
requirements  of  his  rhetoric.  And, 
though  it  be  what  he  is  pleased  to  de- 
scribe as  a  ''fully  insured  world,''  he 
may  suffer  loss  after  loss  to  the  verge  of 
all  but  irretrievable  disaster,  and  be 
brought  to  such  abject  misery  and 
famishing  want,  that,  hke  the  man  in 
the  parable,  he  will  fain  fill  his  belly 
with  the  husks  of  swine.  Following 
up  the  allusion,  I  venture  to  predict 
that  when  that  prodigal  who  shall 
wander  longest  in  ''the  far  country," 
at  last,  under  the  inexorable  schooling 
of  the  moral  order,  shall  "come  to 
himself,''  and  out  of  that  truer  self 
resolves  to  return  to  his  Father's  house, 
if  in  all  that  painful  way  those  worn 
but  resolute  lips  should  part  in  speech, 
it  will  not  be  to  complain  of  the  tame- 
ness  of  life,  nor  to  jibe  at  the  shallow- 
ness of  its  realities.  And  at  last,  when 
that  tragic  figure  draws  near  the  gate, 
and  He  from  within  comes  hurrying 


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HUMAN    DESTINY 

forth, —  He  of  the  infinite  compassion 
—  He  of  the  unrelenting  love  —  He  of 
the  all-seeing  eye  and  unfathomable 
fatherhood,  —  He,  I  promise,  will  not 
*^mock  at  the  puny  victories^'  of  that 
scarred,  broken,  famine-stricken  but 
victorious  man;  nor  essay  to  pluck  him 
as  a  '^puppet''  from  a  ^^ silly  little 
stage." 


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